


the stars reflect you

by rinwins



Category: Blake's 7, Homestuck
Genre: Crossover, F/F, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:18:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinwins/pseuds/rinwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snowman intercepts Servalan at a critical point in her timeline. Or: cigarettes, threats, internal monologue, vague dimensional shenanigans, and alien makeouts. (Or: classy villainous space ladies with complimentary color schemes!)</p>
<p>(Set right after 3x13, 'Terminal'- spoilers!- and also after Intermission.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the stars reflect you

Your name is SERVALAN. If you have a FIRST NAME, it has long since ceased to be relevant. You are the PRESIDENT and SUPREME COMMANDER of the TERRAN FEDERATION.

Or, at least, you used to be.

Now you think you might be dead.

You seem to be floating in space. There’s nothing else in sight, just the dark expanse of void stretched out and dusted with stars, and you, floating, in your white dress. Which you don’t think you were wearing before. You try to think straight.

In your mind you can see a series of images, confused and bright, but when you try to focus on them they slide around and start to vanish. Almost like something is preventing you from remembering them properly. That just won’t do. You push it aside, whatever it is, and remember.

You remember the flight deck of the Liberator. You remember yourself standing at the controls, finally giving the order. You remember… flames. Sparks cascading down like falling stars and the scream of metal tearing apart. The desperate rush to the teleport bay, slamming the control sliders back, the humming sensation and the white light growing over your vision and then-

“Well done,” says the woman standing there. Standing? Yes, standing, feet planted in a confident stance on- you’re not sure what. You are sure she wasn’t there a moment ago. She’s still hard to see, with her face hidden in the shadow of her wide-brimmed hat and her coat reflecting the stars- unless that’s the other way around- but her shape becomes more solid as you watch. A tiny orange glow flares briefly in the void. “Cigarette?” the woman says.

“I never smoke,” you reply automatically. Several questions present themselves, but for the moment, you decide to go with “Who are you?”

The strange woman laughs. It sounds like the click of billiard balls. “These days, they call me Snowman.”

That’s barely a satisfactory answer, but you’re not going to pursue it. “Well, Snowman, what’s going on? I take it I’m not actually dead.”

Snowman seems to consider. The glow of her cigarette shines brighter as she inhales. “Yes,” she says finally, “and no. You were transported to empty space. I understand that kills humans.” The cigarette glows again. “But I can recognize a woman who isn’t finished yet. So I… took a few liberties.”

“You brought me here?” Wherever this is, you think. It looks a lot like empty space to you.

“Mm.”

“Then you can send me back.”

You’re watching her the entire time, and you never see her move. She simply disappears where she is and reappears where you are. She’s standing close to you. Very close.

“Let’s talk somewhere else,” she says.

And then you’re somewhere else.

It’s an elegant transition, even smoother than the teleport, and maybe even faster. It feels less like you moved and more like space, quietly and immediately, rearranged itself around you. You spare half a moment to wonder how she did it, and how you can get the power to do it yourself.

The place you are now looks like a mansion room. For some reason, it’s done out completely in green. Even the light is tinted green, like it’s coming through a filter. There’s a green twist of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, and a green shine to the edges of Snowman’s dark coat- and suddenly, as she turns, you realize why she was so hard to see in the darkness of space.

You’ve seen aliens before, but never any like this. Her skin is perfectly smooth and completely black. You’d have to touch her to be sure, but it looks hard, like a shell. Her hand, when it comes up to her thin mouth with that cigarette in a long holder, is elegant and strange with all the joints visible. You wonder just how far out of the way she brought you. You also note, with some surprise, that you’re still wondering what it would be like to touch her.

She removes the temptation by stepping away from you. There’s still a strange disconnect to her movements, as if you’re only seeing half of the steps she takes. With her free hand she gestures you toward one of the armchairs- they’re handsome enough, in spite of the strange color scheme. You sit down with practiced grace. Snowman stands in a manner that suggests she would be looking out of the window, if there were any in this strange place.

This setup, you think, is beginning to annoy you.

“So,” you say, “here we are. Talk.”

“Yes, I can send you back,” Snowman says, unperturbed, as if the conversation were never interrupted. “In a manner of speaking.”

You have to raise an eyebrow at that. “How so?”

“Things will be different. Not many people will recognize you, or your authority. You’ll have to start over. Not from scratch,” she says, “but from a certain point.”

“Not terribly tempting.” You lean into the chair’s back and consider. “But better than being dead, I suppose.”

“Or you could stay here,” Snowman says. She inhales again, drawing another filigree of smoke in the air. “Help us destroy the universe.”

You’re fairly certain that wasn’t an exaggeration. You almost want to ask. Almost.

“You said not many people,” you say instead. “But some will?”

“Probably. Your world has different rules.”

“The right people?”

The expression on her smooth face might charitably be called a smile. “The right ones always do. I’m sure you have-” a pause, a delicious little shiver in the word- “enemies.”

You return the bitter smile. “How refreshing to meet someone who understands.”

“Even more,” she says, “than you might think.”

“I left him alive,” you say. It’s half to her, half to yourself. You rise from the chair, letting the thought spin itself out. “All of them, him and his crew. Stranded and sabotaged, of course, but they’ll find some way out. They always do.” Your feet carry you, and the thought, forward. “When I get back,” you say, “I’ll make sure it’s the other way around. I’ll be the one to escape, over and over again, and I will make sure I see them dead.”

You’re standing close to Snowman now, almost as close as she was to you before. You could touch her now. But you let the temptation sit, testing yourself.

And she removes it, by reaching carefully toward you. “Sure I can’t convince you to stay?” Her fingertips are cool against your cheek, cigarette smoke wreathing around your head.  “I could find opportunities for a woman of your dedication.”

You catch her wrist- the skin there is stiff, but surprisingly yielding- and give her your sweetest, most dangerous smile. “Send me back.”

That’s when she kisses you.

You’ve been kissed before, obviously. But never like this. Snowman kisses hard, all sharp teeth and smoke and force. She kisses to win. And you decide, in a fraction of a second, to give her some competition.

Your nails catch on the fabric of her coat as you pull her body towards yours. Her hands curl into fists and uncurl, one still pinned by the wrist- you can almost feel the tendons flex under the skin- and one trying to get a purchase in your hair. You laugh against her mouth as she tries again. She rakes down the back of your neck instead, hard fingers digging in, and bites your lip.

There’s a coppery taste in your mouth now. You feel her lick some of the blood away, and you wonder if she will ever need to come up for air, or if she breathes at all.  You don’t seem to be able to inflict much damage on her, not of the sort she’s accomplishing on you. In a way you’d never admit to, it’s thrilling.

If this is her idea of convincing you, you think, you might allow yourself to be persuaded.

It feels like several more minutes before the rest of your thoughts catch up with that one. And when it hits you, you’re angry. You don’t know if it’s her or this place or your own maybe-death affecting your mind like this, but you are not going to stand for it. With a concerted mental effort, you get control of yourself.

Snowman still has her cigarette holder, in the hand you’re still holding on to. You release it abruptly. In the split second before she reacts, you get the holder away from her, flipping it neatly in your fingers so that it points toward her face. There’s not much of the cigarette left, but, you reason, even an ember ought to give someone pause if it’s leveled at their eye.

She goes very, very still.

“How very forward,” she practically purrs.

You hold the cigarette as steady as you can. The faint red glow reflects off her skin. “I don’t know or care what other powers you have,” you say, “you will not toy with me. Send me back.”

Snowman laughs, and it sounds like the death of universes. “I just did.”

She reaches up, slowly, deliberately, and pinches out the ember at the end of the cigarette.

The glow goes out. And suddenly, as the last spark falls, pain shoots through you. Every cell in your body is screaming, trying to pull apart, trying to freeze or collapse or explode. You bite down on a scream of your own. You think you’re going to black out. Snowman holds you up as you shake, and try not to scream again, and wonder if this is what dying in empty space feels like after all-

-and then it’s the endless darkness again, stretched around you and dusted with stars-

-and then it’s just the darkness.

\---

Your name is- hm. No, you can’t use that one anymore. What will your name be?

Your name is COMMISSIONER SLEER, or at least it is for the moment, and you have just woken up on the surface of a strange planet. You aren’t sure how you wound up teleporting here, but you’re not planning to stay very long. You have a lot of work to do.

There must have been an accident in the teleporter, you think, as you set off across the surface. That would explain the cuts on your lip and the scratches you can feel on the back of your neck.

It doesn’t explain, though, the way your mouth tastes of cigarette smoke.


End file.
